Lin Hsin-yueh was born in 1939 in Taichung city. In 1955, he attended the Taichung Provincial No. 1 Middle School. In 1957, he was taught watercolor sceneries and still life by Yang Qi-dong. In 1961, he attended the art department of Taiwan Normal University, winning top place in watercolor in his department graduation exhibition in 1965. Lin went to Spain for further studies in 1975. He curated an exchange exhibition between Spain and the ROC in 1978, and later travelled in Europe, the United States and South America. In 1981, he was invited to hold a solo exhibition by The Library of Congress in Argentina in the City of Buenos Aires Cultural Center. In 1982, he accepted a teaching position in the art department of the National Taiwan Academy of Art. Lin Hsin-yueh is one of few Taiwanese artists who paint and write. He is the author of such books as The Statue of the Artists and Forty Years of Taiwanese Art, in which he pens his reflections on the development of Taiwanese art. His early works were lyrical watercolours. Later, his style became surrealist. In the 1980s, he started caring about protecting Taiwan's natural environment, and created powerful works such as Turtle Island, Northeast Coast, Chou-shui River and Homecoming.

In the 1980s, Lin Hsin-yueh's style moved from surrealist to realist, and he started an in-depth study of Taiwan's mountains and rivers. This work depicts the rocks of Choushui River, giving the originally dull stones a bright multi-colored treatment. The piece is both energetic and lively, the tranquil light play translucent and dreamlike. The work is very poetic.

Lin Hsin-yueh is an art college training post-war Taiwanese artist. Yet he has always stuck to his own path in terms of his painting style. In his early years, he was influenced by Edvard Munch, but chose a surrealist style, immersing himself in the tranquil environments he painted. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, surrealism became representative of his style. A notable feature of his work at this time was his free use of rubbing to depict imaginary landscapes. In 1975 he went to Spain, to see first-hand the works of the surrealist artists he strongly admired. He toured to expand his knowledge and attempted to establish his own self-direction. From 1985, after trekking along Choushui River deep into Yushan Mountain in Taiwan, he was inspired by the great vitality of nature, and he transformed his style, returning to an exploration of things related to Taiwan. His works became filled with Taiwanese bright light and color, and his style shifted from surrealist to realist. His subjects became the mountains, rivers and rocks of Taiwanese landscapes. The subjects that Lin Hsin-yueh depicted were dissimilar in form to Orientalist landscapes as his landscapes not only focused on exemplifying the beauty of Taiwan's landscapes but also contained some philosophizing of Eastern mountain and forest aesthetics.